I guess it was introduced in Mercenary then, but it is certainly there. You need it for some of the bigger man-portable fusion and plama guns, in fact.

Battledress -- a powered, armored environmental suit that effectively doubles Strength and Dexterity, and makes Endurance effectively unlimited -- was there from the beginning in the first edition.  Back when my friends and I were still making the transition from AD&D dungeon-crawling, we made a point of getting a couple of suits. :rolleyes:  Book 4: Mercenary introduced the Combat Environment Suit (or was it just "Combat Armor"?), which was essentially a non-powered version of Battledress, and functioned as an armored vacc suit.

To the original question, I'd suggest Lensman and Niven's Known Space as two good candidates, but that's a tough call, because there were clearly more than two seminal inspirations for the original Traveller.

I shied away from Firefly, even though it was one of my immediate responses.  However, Firefly is the result of influence by Traveller, rather than having an influence upon it.  I'd make a statement more like "Firefly is to Traveller, as Song of Fire and Ice is to D&D."

Firefly *is* Traveller.

!i!

Oh, and I think the main influences were Foundation and Polesotlchichwhateveritscalled for the merchant angle).

Oh yes, Nick van Rijn!

@Melan: Although I have read "Demon Princes" on your recomendation and I enjoyed it, it never said Traveller to me.

Thinking more about it I think the two most important works should be:

THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM and THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

Firefly is rubbish. It´s also utterly un-Traveller. Sub-complex society; direct Western translation, hyperindividualism + Dixie nostalgia -> boring, manga-ized, highschool crap with a lame reactionary message.
Good riddance!

Quote from: Settembrini;389404Firefly is rubbish. It´s also utterly un-Traveller. Sub-complex society; direct Western translation, hyperindividualism + Dixie nostalgia -> boring, manga-ized, highschool crap with a lame reactionary message.
Good riddance!

I think I'm going to talk for many around here when telling you: fuck you on that one, Sett.

You're looking for Space Viking and Satan's World, Koltar.

Quote from: Settembrini;389404Firefly is rubbish. It´s also utterly un-Traveller. Sub-complex society; direct Western translation, hyperindividualism + Dixie nostalgia -> boring, manga-ized, highschool crap with a lame reactionary message.

Your personal opinions aside, you don't know what you're talking about.  Your inflexible Prussian mindset demands direct and over-literal correspondences where more subtle correlations exist.  It's no wonder your little corner fell off the edge of the world after WWII.

I'll expand on my previous statement: Firefly is Traveller, but Traveller is not necessarily Firefly.

!i!

Quote from: Settembrini;389404Firefly is rubbish. It´s also utterly un-Traveller. Sub-complex society; direct Western translation, hyperindividualism + Dixie nostalgia -> boring, manga-ized, highschool crap with a lame reactionary message.
Good riddance!

You are dead to me.

Quote from: Settembrini;389404Firefly is rubbish. It´s also utterly un-Traveller. Sub-complex society; direct Western translation, hyperindividualism + Dixie nostalgia -> boring, manga-ized, highschool crap with a lame reactionary message.
Good riddance!

Sett, the others are right - you're on your own with that opinion.


Although my question was concerned with books and Authors - "Firefly"/SERENITY has bewcome onbe of the best visual hooks for explaining TRAVELLER to new gamers these days.

Also there was no "Dixie -Nostalgia" in that show, if you had paid attention you would have noticed that the Heroes of the show are anti-slavery while the in-power government seems to condone or at least allow slavery in the 'verse. (But thats a seperate topic)


- Ed C.

Astounding SF and Worlds of IF.
For me it's very much a gathering of all the short stories I've been reading in old issues of the SF digests from the 40s and 50s... lots of concerns about mercantilism, equipment/tech and emergent psi-powers.
Lots of Poul Anderson, Murray Leinster, Gordon Dickson, Algis Budrys and Asimov.
Stories full of adventurous engineers and linguists and pilots who were also good in a fight.

Oh, and 'Forbidden Planet' as well!

Quote from: Settembrini;389404Firefly is rubbish. It´s also utterly un-Traveller. Sub-complex society; direct Western translation, hyperindividualism + Dixie nostalgia -> boring, manga-ized, highschool crap with a lame reactionary message.
Good riddance!

Once again, you are incredibly off-base.

I won't give book titles, but authors whose work encompases Traveller to me. If I went for specific books, then that would be limiting a Traveller game to a specific campaign in my mind.

Allen Steele, H. Beam Piper, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, John Scalzi, CJ Cherryh, Robert A. Heinlein, Alastair Reynolds, and Walter John Williams.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;389412Your personal opinions aside, you don't know what you're talking about.  Your inflexible Prussian mindset demands direct and over-literal correspondences where more subtle correlations exist.  It's no wonder your little corner fell off the edge of the world after WWII.

I'll expand on my previous statement: Firefly is Traveller, but Traveller is not necessarily Firefly.

!i!

Dead on, with both points.

I was fairly baffled when they announced a Firefly game.  I kept thinking, "Wouldn't it just be easier to license MongTraveller for that?"  I swear Whedon has to have a stash of old Traveller books around he isn't admitting to.

Quote from: StormBringer;389457Dead on, with both points.

I was fairly baffled when they announced a Firefly game.  I kept thinking, "Wouldn't it just be easier to license MongTraveller for that?"  I swear Whedon has to have a stash of old Traveller books around he isn't admitting to.

You might be half-right on that last bit Stormbringer. Whedon has a friend and fellow writer that usually winds up on staff or freelancing on each show that Whedon creates or produces. That friend of his is apparently a gamer and major geek/sci-fi fan. The character of Andrew on B:TVS was loosely based on that guy.

So, Whedon may not have the TRAVELLER books himself, his friend does -and he may have played in a game or two for fun and the hobbies/interests of his friends could have very likely influenced his writing.


- Ed C.